EverChanging
by Hiril Moon
Summary: PostKH2. Sora, Kairi and Riku are back on Destiny Islands now, and still trying to adjust to a normal life...And each other.


**Warnings for Story:** Badly written, OOCness, product of sleep-deprived mind.

**Notes:** In case you can't tell, first section is Sora's POV, second section is Kairi's and third section is Riku's. Set after KH2, so kinda mild spoilers. (As in, Oh my God, they survived!)

**Ever-Changing**

_**-Master-**_

The keyblade appears in my hands with barely a thought. It's so natural now that I barely notice I'm doing it, like walking or breathing. It's just an instinct, a reflex.

But now I can't let it be like that. Back on the other worlds it appeared whenever I was in trouble, so that I could fight the Heartless the way I'm supposed to. But back home, it's different. If a teacher yells at me or the other team wins at Blitzball, I can't let myself summon it. I may want to, but I can't.

What would everyone say? Only Riku and Kairi even know about it. Not even my mum knows. She'd probably freak out if she found out, especially as she's still recovering from her only son vanishing for almost two years. Knowing he's chosen for something like this might even send her over the edge.

That's what life's like for me now. Always being careful, trying not to give anything away about where I've been and what I've been doing. Everyone wants to know where there is to disappear to on Destiny Islands. This world's just not big enough for any excuses to work for long.

There was so much space out there. So many places to go, people to meet, things to do. Okay, I was always fighting Heartless, but even that was exciting for me. If I got bored, there would be something there, even if it was just a Shadow. They weren't exactly thin on the ground.

That sounds so twisted when I put it like that. After fighting those things for so long, you'd think I'd be glad for the break. But now I just want it to be happening all over again. I guess I've gotten so used to my life being one battle after another that now I've no idea how to deal with dull reality.

Almost two years. That's how long they say we've been gone. Even when you take out the year I spent asleep, it's still easily long enough to change who you are.

Everything's different now though, not just me. Just about the only thing that hasn't changed are the Islands themselves. Everybody's grown up since I left, and most of us have grown apart as well. It's just me, Kairi and Riku now, with nobody else around.

Not that we're still the same. Kairi always seems to have her mind on something else these days, as if she to constantly think about what she's saying. Sometimes she relaxes and we almost manage to talk like we used to, but even then there's clearly something she's not saying. I guess I'll never find out what it is.

As for Riku… Everyone's noticed, that's pretty obvious, even to me. The over-confident, smirking, competitive guy vanished, and then two years later someone older, quieter and, I guess, darker appeared. I keep trying to remember what he used to be like, how we'd have to fight over everything, but it never works. No matter how hard I try, those memories keep bleeding into what happened after the darkness came. It's like Xehanort is still managing to poison things from wherever he is now.

But I could just be searching for some physical reason. Somebody deliberately making things happen, responsible for anything that happens. I keep forgetting that I'm supposed to be normal now. Normal people don't have villains or the darkness causing problems, just themselves.

Damn it. When I was growing up, I always dreamt about adventures in other places, just so I wouldn't get bored here. I never realised how hard it would be to live a normal life afterwards.

Normal. Just the same as everybody else.

Can the chosen master of the keyblade ever be that?

* * *

_**-Princess-**_

No one ever realises how hard it is for the one left behind. They always care more about the heroes, the ones who run off on some great journey. I don't think anybody ever wants to know about the people they leave behind.

Because that's what they did to me. Maybe not on purpose, but they still did it. My two best friends were travelling different worlds the way we'd always wanted to and I was left on Destiny Islands.

I was never sure if I should hate them or not. Anybody else would, but somehow I never did. I just felt empty, as if I'd lost something important. In the end, that was why I wanted to go looking for them. Just so that I could find them.

But then I did, and everything was different. _They_ were different. I remember asking Sora never to change, but in the time he was gone, he did. It wasn't deliberate, but that doesn't matter. He's not the Sora I played with two years ago.

He's older. Sadder. I know he's seen things I can barely imagine, and now he won't even talk about them. It used to be that you couldn't make him shut up, but now the real challenge is to get him to talk at all.

It's not just Sora though. Neither of them are the same anymore. Riku's changed so much that sometimes I can barely recognise him as the boy he used to be. He was always the oldest, but now he's completely grown up without us, leaving us behind.

Left behind again.

They're both so much older now. They've got different interests, thoughts, feelings…Everything. And I'm still the same as ever. I may have started to grow up on the outside, but inside I feel just the same as I did when it all started, rather than being…I don't know what. Wiser? More mature? What?

Still, I must have changed somehow. If I haven't, I should be able to talk to them like I used to, no matter how changed they are. Inside, they're still the guys I used to know, so I should at least be able to talk to that small part of them.

So why do I feel so weird around them? As if I'm trying to talk to complete strangers, instead of my best friends? Do all friendships have these low points, or does it mean that the friends have grown too far apart?

I hadn't seen them for over a year. I had to get used to a life without them, had to find other people to talk to, had to go on. But at the same time I wanted them to be there, even pretended I could talk to them. Wouldn't that mean that I'd know what to say when I really did see them?

It's not just that I don't know what to say to them. Sometimes I feel awkward, almost uncomfortable around them, like I've interrupted something or arrived without being invited. I have to try too hard to carry on a conversation or actually think about what I'm going to say. It's all become so mechanical, as if I'm following set rules instead of doing what feels right.

It won't stay this way though. I won't let it. The Heartless have already taken and destroyed so much, I won't let them do the same to our friendship. It's too important for all three of us.

I know Sora wants to be out there again, following a destiny he doesn't understand. He needs us to give him a reason to stay and stop him when he starts to drift away.

Riku needs us to keep him out here in the light. We're what he thinks of when the darkness starts to get too big for him, so we can't just vanish. If we do, he will too.

And me?

More than anything, I want things to be the way they were before. That can't happen; I know that, so I'll have to settle for what I have.

Sora and Riku are my best friends. I won't let that change along with everything else.

* * *

_**-Darkness-**_

I keep thinking I can hear him in my head. Calling me, taunting me, dangling freedom just out of my reach. Even after over a year, it's like he's still there as if it was yesterday. He wasn't even there for that long, a few days to a week at most, but it'll feel like it's still going on for years, I know. Maybe even forever.

Sometimes I dream that it's all happening again, but worse. I see Sora trapped as a Heartless, eventually killed by one of his friends. Exactly who always varies, but he tended to linger longest over Kairi. I think he just wanted to taunt me with that idea.

Kairi usually ends up trapped forever with the rest of the Princesses, although what happens to them is different practically every time. The only image I've seen more than once is each Princess killed by the one her heart is linked to.

Once I dreamt about Beast ripping Belle to shreds and eating her heart. I woke up retching.

The only thing that stays constant is his gain of power. He never imagined losing, so I don't see that. Instead, the door opens and darkness flows out, joining with him. The Heartless follow it, at his beck and call, to with as he desires.

Destiny Islands appears occasionally. One time it's the way it should be, and I watch as it's torn apart by the darkness all over again. Another time I see it the way I left it, just a shadow left by the darkness that overran it.

So many people died that day. And no one knows that it was my fault.

When I wake up, I never now where I am. All I see is darkness all around me, and I assume that I'm back there. I try to open a door out, but it never comes. Not since Xemnas supposedly faded away and I was told that I didn't belong there anymore.

I betrayed the light and was cast out by the dark. No wonder I ended up in twilight, between the two. Because no matter how much I talk about the dawn, I'm just the same as the Nobodies. Except I'm worse, because I have a heart. I had a choice.

In a way, I felt closer to them than anybody else. When I pretended to be one, it felt more like I was finally being who I really was. Maybe because I knew that they could feel the darkness inside the same way I could.

That hasn't changed now. I'll be at home, doing homework, or at school, walking between classes, and it'll suddenly hit me. It's like a hole opens in front of me, just like the doors I used to make, only instead of me going in, darkness comes out.

And then I feel myself respond, as a part of me recognises it and tries to join with it again. However much I try to go to the light, something keeps dragging me back. It's like there's something inside me, pulling me away from what I want and towards what it wants.

I pretend it doesn't happen. If Sora or Kairi ask, I just smile and say everything's fine. My hair means they can't see my eyes if I don't want them to, so they can't tell that I'm lying to them.

About the dreams.

About the darkness.

About how, in a way, I miss it.

It should've been the worse time of my life. Lost to the darkness, as everyone so melodramatically put it. But it wasn't. I didn't feel lost or trapped, I felt…free.

After being stuck on this world for so long, I could go wherever I wanted. Most people avoided me, thinking I was one of the bad guys, and I could just portal away when I got bored or in trouble. It may have come at too high a cost, but I got the freedom that I had wanted for all of those years.

Now I'm trapped on these Islands again, but it's worse now. I know what it's like to just be able to hop from one world to another, but I can't leave this one. No doors, no portals, no ships, not even any stupid rafts. I got to school, I live what life there is here, and the whole time I just want to be back out there,

I can't be trusted. I know that now. I can never be trusted, because there will always be a part of me that wants the darkness. And because the rest of me will always want that freedom back, it won't fight it.

I have to force myself to stay. I think of Sora and Kairi, and it gets that little bit easier for a while. It never lasts, but that small amount of time is usually enough.

But if they left… I'd go. Not back to Ansem (or Xehanort, or whoever he really was in the end), but back into the darkness.

The light lets Sora do what he wants, but only the darkness sets me free. And I want it back.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Ah, Kingdom Hearts. My latest obsession. It's been on the back-burner for a while, but then I actually got KH2 (yes, I hadn't really played the games. Apart from CoM, which I didn't understand for a while…) and it got much worse. Which would be why I am attempting to write a thought-ficcy, which would be how my obsessions start out. (See X-Men Movie obsession) 

Agh, the OOC-ness is so bad in this. I kept writing this at about 11 o'clock at night, whilst sleep-deprived, so actually THIS STUPID STORY IS WHY I'VE BEEN A BLINKIN' ZOMBIE FOR THE LAST WEEK!

…I feel much better now. You, however, are probably feeling much more freaked out, so I will be quiet about how bad it is.

Sort of.

…

Sorry…


End file.
